Doorway to Stranglehold
by Perranporth
Summary: Rose meets a woman the Doctor thought he'd never see again.


**Doorway to Stranglehold**

"So what do you think?"

The Doctor flashed a toothy grin at his young companion as he proudly asked the question. Rose Tyler stared ahead and for that moment, she could only say what she saw.

"It's a corridor."

"It's a corridor," echoed the Doctor. "But not just any corridor. This will take me straight to the Wardrobe Room."

"I don't understand."

The Doctor pointed to the sturdy closed doors. "It's Tudor England out there. Greensleeves, Utopia, 'Off with 'er 'ead'. I can't go out dressed like this. I'll be sent straight to the Tower."

Rose bristled at the Doctor's seemingly deliberate flippancy. "What I mean is, I don't understand how you just pressed a few buttons and that corridor appeared out of nowhere."

"Architectural Configuration," replied the Doctor as if that explained everything. "You don't think the TARDIS interior has always looked like this, do you? Oh, the layout might grow on you for a century or two, but then you tend to go off it. It's good to change once in a while. Why move home when your home can move for you? Now it's just a one minute round trip to the Wardrobe Room - as opposed to a five minute one. What your mother would give!"

Rose watched him stroll along the newly-formed corridor until he turned right around the corner at the end. She then slowly crossed the room to the Console in the middle and examined the panel that the Doctor had performed this 'Architectural Configuration' with. It looked amazingly spartan with four red buttons in a diamond formation, and some sort of circular readout screen in the middle. How could this possibly be the mechanism that could move rooms around, and create corridors in a machine as complex as the TARDIS? She had watched the Doctor from the other side of the room and hadn't seen clearly what he had done in those few seconds, but he had apparently just skittered his fingers over it. She knew she shouldn't, but her curiosity got the better over her.

Apparently nothing had happened, but she wasn't too surprised. She clearly didn't have the Doctor's magic touch, but it was after all the first time she had ever tried this out. However, when she turned around, her face fell. The corridor was gone as if it had never existed. The light brown, metallic wall was solid again. She was about to cry out in panic - and then she noticed the door.

It was a white wooden door as one might see inside a typical London house. It was set in the wall about five metres to the left from where the corridor had been. Clearly her half-hearted experimenting had affected the Architectural Configuration after all.

"Doctor?" she called nervously, approaching this new object. "Doctor? I think I've made a bit of a mistake." She paused for a second, then pulled the door open.

She found herself looking at what appeared to be a dense, haphazard entanglement of sharp, twisted, grey barbed wire. But if that wasn't surprising enough, it was the human face entwined within that made her jump. Looking straight at her was a bespectacled woman in her late thirties. At first glance, she looked pretty calm. But then this newcomer grimaced and cried "Help me, Rose Tyler!"

"Who are you?" stammered the incredulous Rose.

"I am Sonia Kemistra!" exclaimed the wretched figure in a despearate voice. "Please Rose Tyler, have the Doctor rescue me from Stranglehold!"

Rose stared at the pitiful soul, not knowing what to say. She opened her mouth to speak some token words - and heard a stern voice approaching from behind. "Rose, what have you been up to?"

More instinctively than anything else, Rose slammed the door on the uncomfortable scene and spun around to see the Doctor emerging from the TARDIS' original corridor. "Doctor!" she exclaimed. "You...haven't changed."

"Unlike the route from the Wardrobe Room." The Doctor looked unusually stern and glanced at the rogue door as he crossed to the Console. "Far be it from me to make wild accusations, but would you consider it impolite of me to ask if you've been meddling with the Architectural Configuration?"

Rose gave a little shrug, but made sure she was leaning on the door so it wouldn't swing open. "I was curious."

"Do you know the dangers from dimensional instability you might have brought up?"

"I'm sorry!"

The Doctor looked at his friend, mimicked her earlier shrug and smiled warmly. "Oh well, not much harm done." He looked at the readout screen. "So I lost a few corridors, we gained an extra door and...Sonia Kemistra..."

His voice suddenly trailed off and he looked uncharacteristically emotional. "What?" ventured Rose, innocently.

"Sonia Kemistra," replied the Doctor, pointing at the screen. "Says it here."

"I wonder what that means?"

"Sonia Kemistra was a friend of mine from the planet Winzera. A very close friend. I met her when I was visiting the Winzeran State Museum and she was the chief curator. What I didn't realize during our brief time together was that she also responsible for the deaths of fifty seven children. Poisoned their foods with Almuxa seeds. She told the trial that the Devil himself had spoken to her from Stranglehold and told her to do it."

"Stranglehold?"

"It's the Winzeran concept of Hell. An infinite realm where the souls of sinners are hung in Diabolus Wire for all eternity. My Sonia was terrified of going there. She was surrounded by paintings of Stranglehold every day at the Museum which is why I found it so hard to believe she could have done what she did. And why she hung herself in her cell."

Rose felt close to tears. "Doctor, I'm so sorry."

"There was no doubt; she was guilty. But she was clearly disturbed as well. If only I had spotted it earlier, I could have helped her. The last time I saw her, I detected genuine remorse, coupled with fear of eternal damnation."

"If only you could save her from this Stranglehold." Rose gripped the door handle behind her.

The Doctor gave her a strange look. "Well I would if places like Stranglehold, or Hell, or Hades actually existed." His trademark smile returned. "Why do we sound so morbid? I'll just get rid of any unwanted doors and then I'll get changed."

His fingers skittered over the red and green buttons. "No!" exclaimed Rose.

"What's the matter?"

How could she upset her beloved friend with such a momentous philosophical as well as personal revelation? "Nothing."

The door vanished as quickly as it had appeared.


End file.
